The rebels also set fire to 35 houses and some villagers could have burned alive, Dutta said. "We are looking for more bodies."

"The Maoists probably wanted to avenge the deaths of eight cadres who were lynched by the villagers recently," another local police officer said.

The Maoist revolt started in May 1967 as a peasant-based uprising in West Bengal's Naxalbari town, but has now spread to large swathes of countryside in more than 20 out of 28 states, especially around mineral-rich eastern and central India.